Navy gets new helicopter landing dock ship

War veteran Ernie Rudland sees only one obvious similarity between Australia's newest, biggest naval vessel and the ship he served on 70 years earlier: a name.

As a teenager, he was assigned to HMAS Canberra before it was crippled by a Japanese strike and sunk in the Pacific on August 9, 1942, during World War II.

A second Canberra was decommissioned in 2005.

But on Friday, the national capital's name was bestowed on a new vessel - the first Landing Helicopter Dock (LHD) - so big it can hold more than 1100 personnel, 100 armoured vehicles and a dozen helicopters.

"There's no comparison at all," Mr Rudland, now 89, said after attending a naming ceremony in Melbourne.

"This is mighty. This is something that you could hardly expect. I'm really stunned at the size of it and the way it's been put together."

At 27,500 tonnes, the ship is one of two LHDs acquired at a cost of more than $2 billion.